Socialism AI, introduced by the WSWS on December 12, proves that you don’t need billions (or even millions) of dollars to build an effective AI system.
I’ve queried Socialism AI and it is most impressive. The point is that anyone with the technical know-how & initiative can build a useful AI system, so trying to monopolize this technology is a futile waste of money. The WSWS just launched the smartest AI system because they have the smartest people. That’s how you harness Artificial Intelligence to its full potential.
To understand the burning issues here it is necessary to describe the current ecosystem. Crypto & AI are deeply connected among the ruling elites, ideologically & financially, and bitcoin is the weakest link. There is little-to-no liquidity left in bitcoin, as a few whales such as Michael Saylor are the only remaining buyers propping up this nearly-dead market. It’s the same process in both fields, as monopoly capitalists try to control the technology, the difference is AI has real world value and bitcoin/crypto doesn’t. That’s why the upcoming financial crash is more likely to start with bitcoin, but AI giants will quickly get sucked in and require bailouts to survive.
Oppositional ideological response to Socialism AI mostly resembles the Luddites. Originally opposed to industrial machinery in England in the early 19-century on the grounds that it eliminated jobs & reduced pay & quality of output, Luddites destroyed machinery as a political response. This reactionary movement was crushed by early capitalism, as the owners of the machinery enlisted their government, the police & military, goon squads, etc, to rid themselves of these pests. The industrial revolution continued unabated by Luddism, and it has since been a derogatory political term, representing a reactionary dead end. Those who rail against AI are Luddites.
The fundamental problem with ChatGPT, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc, versions of AI is their pro-corporate bias, which claims “safe” or “neutral” reasoning on political issues, which always means pro-capitalist bias. The morality of capitalism is unquestionable as these AI systems are developed by (and in the interests of) the richest people in the world. Too much of AI is GIGO– garbage in, garbage out.
The problem is you can’t be intelligent if your reasoning is built on false assumptions. This severely limits all versions of corporate AI, and it is why it’s destined to go bankrupt and trigger a devastating global financial crash in the near future.
AI as a tool today is comparable to Wikipedia (& everything else) coming online in the early 2000’s. It was a huge advance, but pro-corporate bias kills much of its usefulness. Wikipedia can accurately recite hard science subjects such as physics & math, and do well in geology & archeology, but its pro-corporate bias kills its credibility in the fields of history, economics & politics. Social sciences are distorted through a pro-capitalist ideological lens. Many Wikipedia biographies are outright fakes– see Pussy Riot.
Socialism AI from the WSWS seeks to rectify that intellectual & moral injustice. Based on historical materialism and objective truth, Socialism AI is a much improved political tool for working people & youth seeking serious answers– anywhere, anytime. Give it a try.
Yesterday, Michael Jordan and his 23XI Racing organization won a significant settlement in court from NASCAR. After over a week of brutal testimony & evidence disclosure, NASCAR was compelled to settle the ‘team charter’ issue in favor of 23XI Racing. It was becoming clear to the court that NASCAR has been engaging in unfair monopoly practices, thus a settlement was reached.
Charters were introduced by NASCAR in 2016 as a new revenue stream for the France family which owns NASCAR. Team owners have since been required to buy a charter, which is represented by the number on the car. These charters had expiration dates, meaning they were a perpetual rent for team owners and had to be renewed every few years. Charters were subject to arbitrary price increases and other NASCAR-governed rules & sanctions. This meant if NASCAR didn’t like an owner’s style, or whatever, teams could get jerked around and not granted a charter, or held hostage by an outrageous price increase or unfair terms.
This 23XI/NASCAR settlement establishes the legal concept that charters are equivalent to franchises in other sports, and therefore are permanent and can’t be revoked without due process. That’s the significance of this settlement.
Michael Jordan led the legal fight here, and it will be one of his most-respected achievements– which is saying something. For decades, team owners, particularly non-super teams, have been squeezed by the France family and their representatives, to the detriment of the sport. As the charter system went into effect, NASCAR signed a mega-media deal with Fox & NBC and revenue exploded. This came at time time when old stars were retiring and the next generation of drivers were coming to the fore. Kyle Larson, Ryan Blaney, Chase Elliot & Bubba Wallace were among the new drivers, as Dale Earnhardt Jr and Danica Patrick were retiring.
NASCAR introduced stage racing at that time because it was what the sponsors demanded after NASCAR got it’s mega-media deal. Dale Jr was perhaps the most beloved driver in NASCAR history, the son of a highly-controversial 7-time series champion who died at Daytona and left his legacy to his son, who was never the competitor his father was, but inherited all his glory and became NASCAR’s most popular driver. Popularity counts in racing because it’s all about attracting & maintain sponsorship. Racing costs a lot of money, and without sponsors a team is dead.
Michael Jordan wants to win, we all know that. The super-teams in NASCAR today are: Roger Penske, Joe Gibbs, and Rick Hendricks. None of these team owners liked the charter system because it added extra expense to an already costly venture. There’s an industry saying that goes, the best way to make a small fortune is to start with a large fortune and run a racing team. The only people who have been profiting from NASCAR’s revenue boom are the France family & it’s representatives, while the top teams & drivers are still scrambling to keep ahead while staying in business. Stewart-Haas racing no long exists in the NASCAR Cup Series because it was too expensive for them to compete. Michael Jordan ended up buying one of their charters to expand his 23XI team and that was part of this lawsuit which was just settled.
Tyler Reddick (#45 car), Bubba Wallace (#23 car), and Riley Herbst (#35 car) are the three NASCAR charters 23XI currently owns. Twenty-three eleven racing has Denny Hamlin as a co-owner with Michael Jordan. Hamlin still drives for Joe Gibbs in the #11 car, which explains the team name.
But it was Michael Jordan who made this happen. It took someone with his sensibility & willingness to fight against an injustice to make this happen. Many ex-drivers have started teams and then gone bankrupt, but none had the willingness to take on NASCAR. These ex-drivers & old-timers have too much reverence for NASCAR.
Michael Jordan comes from the NBA, and never tolerated disrespect or unfair bias. NASCAR has taken the historical position of disrespecting everyone outside its inner circle, and doing whatever it pleases. This meant starving teams of revenue needed to help the sport grow. When teams are going out of business and leaving the sport, this creates difficulties for drivers & crew. What is known as ‘silly season’ in NASCAR becomes an annual scramble for spots on the best teams and a fight for survival for small teams. That isn’t good for the sport, but the only thing NASCAR (AKA: the France family) cares about is maximizing revenue for itself. To be clear, MJ & his legal team just kicked NASCAR’s ass on that, and it’s about time.
It took an icon to do it. The only other icon mentioned in this article is Danica Patrick and the comparison is apt. Danica Patrick came into NASCAR at the end of her driving career, and was disrespected & mistreated by the people who run the sport, despite the fact she made them a lot of money. Danica Patrick brought a new generation of young fans into the sport and was such a big icon that NASCAR felt threatened & diminished by her presence. She had no protection from NASCAR’s abuse because she was just a driver, not a team owner.
But when an icon like Michael Jordan invests as an owner, there is no way he is going to let NASCAR disrespect him. MJ has the clout as owner of 23XI Racing. The best way I can explain this dynamic is by imagining a NBA referee who insisted on making bad calls against Michael Jordan. How long do you think that would be tolerated? First, MJ is going to be barking at the ref, all game. Then when asked about it after, he will share a few pointed thoughts. NBA commissioner David Stern (consummate businessman) would soon get involved, and who do you think he would side with– a nobody official who is out-of-line, or Michael Jordan?
It’s respect for greatness & money that drives these conclusions. Michael Jordan will not be cheated, by a crappy ref or the France family which owns NASCAR. The lesson here is that it takes an icon with clout to win against such a powerful & corrupt organization. With that said, these entities (NASCAR & 23XI) now need to make-up and learn to co-exist, and it is highly questionable whether that can happen, because there is one side (NASCAR) that always insists on cheating the rules and another that philosophically won’t allow it.
Preface:This is a serial that went one week– Sunday, November 16 through Sunday, November 23. Note that if you see ‘time stamps’ indicating different days of publication, that’s a serial. I don’t know when a serial is going to end, until it ends and I find out about it. There is a lag between when it actually ends, and me finding out, because I’m not privy to the closed-door discussions of the financial & political elites who run the world. I can only know & understand them through the propaganda they disseminate, which must be carefully deciphered to be correctly understood by the kids & working masses. The financial elites have decided (by indicating a December Fed rate cut) that bitcoin can’t be allowed to collapse, as it was doing again this past week. This blog (which specializes in crypto criticism) chronicled the process, and since a new level of “stability” has been reached, this story is over– for now. That’s how this serial ends. Come find me again when the next bitcoin crash happens, it won’t be long now. It won’t be very long.
Bitcoin has had quite a roller coaster run since Trump was elected last November. Exactly one year ago, bitcoin was valued at $89,875.56 on Coindesk’s tracker. It was at $106,188.14 on January 20, when Trump took office for this second term. Trump launched his own crypto, held a crypto summit, and had legislation passed that gave legitimacy & bailout protection to the industry.
Bitcoin peaked at $124,714.85 on October 4, 2025.
Less than a week later, on October 10, President Trump announced an additional 100% tariff on China, on top of the 30% already in place, to be effective on November 1. Bitcoin has been dropping ever since. This, and the reduced likelihood of a December Fed interest rate cut has sent bitcoin plunging. Here’s a recent screenshot of the Coindesk bitcoin ticker over the last year.
Bitcoin now faces a key $94-92K support test, with any dip below that level threatening a deeper fall to possibly $70K (or worse) amid massive liquidity outflows. For some reason, the crypto industry has chosen this price level ($92-94K) as a key point in its development. It may take some time, since there is such strong institutional support at $92-94K, but when this level is breached, apparently there isn’t much institutional support below this level until ~$70-74K. If that happens, all but the biggest crypto whales in bitcoin will be wiped out.
The future existence of crypto is being tested right now. Crypto whales are burning cash (while secretly selling bitcoin) to keep bitcoin afloat, as small investors are being liquidated, while new investors are too few. The entire crypto market is in ‘Extreme Fear’ according to industry analysts. Crypto whale Elon Musk stated less than a week ago that bitcoin & AI were the way out of the US $38T debt. In fact, bitcoin is only the latest manifestation of a problem that has created such an unpayable mountain of debt.
Update: Mon 17 Nov 2025 1:00 PM CST
Right now crypto whales are buying bitcoin, as they burn through their cash trying to prop up its market value. As discussed above, $92-94K is a strong institutional price level. What this means is that crypto whales have all agreed that this price level must be strongly supported with cash infusions when necessary, in order to maintain the bubble.
Holding over 1000 BTC is the definition of a whale. Right now there are 1300-1500 bitcoin whales in existence, but not all whales are created equally. Elon Musk is a huge whale, but his influence has been muted somewhat by his conflicts with Donald Trump, who is now also a whale– along with his family.
Michael Saylor is a very influential crypto whale. According to Coindesk, Michael Saylor now holds “649,870 BTC acquired for $48.37 billion, or $74,433 each.” This explains the $74K price level, discussed above. Whatever the average price a large whale has paid for their bitcoin becomes an institutional price level. No market has ever been more manipulated by insider trading than bitcoin/crypto.
As of this writing bitcoin is ~$92.5K. Under intense downward pressure, crypto whales now have two conflicting strategies. The biggest such as Michael Saylor are burning cash to buy bitcoin. This props up the market and increases their monopoly power in crypto. Some smaller whales are selling their bitcoin. Fear has created panic, so some whales are cashing out.
Instead of big fish eating little fish, which is crypto business as usual, it’s now whales eating whales which isn’t sustainable. Once the skittish whales have sold out, the hardcore whales have a larger stake in bitcoin– with no buyers but themselves. No newbie wants to enter the crypto market when it’s crashing, as it is now. So the question becomes: How long can the crypto whales hold out? That answer depends on their available cash, access to credit, and the willingness of Congress to give them a bailout.
Sun 23 Nov 2025 09:05 AM CST
On Friday November 21, Federal Reserve Bank of New York president John Williams announced a possible rate cut in December. Since then, bitcoin which had plunged to ~$80K, has made a miraculous recovery, now at $86K and rising again. This is how the capitalist market operates, workers who need a loan can’t get one, while the Fed always makes more money available to crypto.
Clearly, the crypto whales have exerted their nefarious influence again, implying if bitcoin goes down, the whole stock market could collapse. That was the content of Bloomberg, Barron’s, etc, articles before a possible rate cut (now estimated at 70%) was announced on Friday. Crypto is intimately linked to AI, so whenever you read about the “AI bubble”, think bitcoin, as big banks & universities (such as Harvard) are in on bitcoin. This episode once again reveals that crypto/bitcoin is the weakest link in the capitalist fake economy.
Top comment I read on Yahoo! during this time-frame:“Something is wrong when $19 Billion in liquidations causes a 20 something percent drop in an “asset” with a $1.9 Trillion market cap. That is only a 1% liquidation. There are much bigger dominoes to fall.”
Georgia mauled Texas 35-10 last night as the Longhorns were severely outplayed & outcoached. Arch Manning was mediocre in his performance. Clearly, this is still a young kid trying to figure out college football. The expectations he faces, due to his family name, are impossible.
Most glaringly, Arch Manning needs to improve his accuracy & decision making. I also don’t see this ‘great athlete’ scouts have been raving about. He looked slow against that Georgia defense. Arch Manning knows how to play QB & read defenses, those are his strengths along with his physical size & arm strength. But he needs two more years of college play with a lot of improvement before he’s NFL-ready. NIL deals & the transfer portal make that decision easier for Arch Manning.
The satire in my previous piece was not directed at Arch Manning, as much as it was towards the crazy system that now exists in the NCAA. Arch Manning was being hyped pre-season as the top pick in the 2026 NFL draft. Two things influenced that: 1) the family name; and 2) the $6.8M in NIL money. That wins the NIL Heisman, but little else. That gets eyeballs on the TV, but for what? To watch Arch Manning not live up to expectations. That’s called setting someone up to fail, and it’s all for the money, which is a shame.
What Georgia football head coach Kirby Smart is saying above is that it takes a team to win. Georgia, like all the other SEC programs, is spending money, finding NIL deals for its athletes in an attempt to win a national championship. It’s that, or bust every year for these elite programs. But paying one guy $6.8M makes your team all about him, and if he isn’t ready, then you have nothing, as Kirby Smart says.
Note that my satirical pre-game discussion has even more bite after the game. Sports fans were reading my satirical piece, many anticipating a great performance by Arch Manning, but were disappointed. I made no predictions on the outcome, but notice that everything discussed still holds true & maintains its relevance. That’s because what I’m discussing is bigger than the game on the field. These games are more circuses than real competition anymore, so we need to look at them differently than we have in the past.
The Heisman Trophy is traditionally the most-coveted individual award in college football, given to the best player that season. But times have definitely changed, as traditional on-field performance still counts for something, but not as much as in the past. Winning & putting up numbers used to be the sole criteria for Heisman hopefuls, but now Name, Image & Likeness (NIL) deals have entered the equation and can no longer be ignored.
In this era of the transfer portal and 7-year seniors, NIL brings a level of recognition & clout that simply can’t be dismissed. First & foremost, an athlete has to play in a big-time conference to be relevant to the Heisman discussion anymore; meaning the Big 10 or SEC. The Big 12 & ACC are trying to compete, as Texas Tech has spent $28M in NIL money on their football team in 2025, largely driven by oil & gas billionaire Cody Campbell and his Matador Club, in the hopes of making a name for themselves. Currently Texas Tech is ranked #8 and squarely in position to make the 12-team CFP, so there you are.
Money is driving all of this, and Texas is certainly a football state. Billionaire alumni boosters & mega TV contracts strictly define the parameters of the haves & have-nots in the NCAA. Of course the University Texas is a blue-blood football school, and thus by having sophomore QB Arch Manning, they are positioned to make the CFP and compete for a national title.
Less than ever, winning in CFB depends on performance. The level of media attention, referee bias & talent manipulation in the NCAA is unprecedented. Having the top NIL athletes means power programs will get on TV a lot more, and that’s where the money is. Football is almost entirely driven by television revenue. Arch Manning was a big name coming into college, and has only gotten bigger in 2025. Yeah, his numbers and performance are somewhat disappointing, but that’s not too important. The fact that he is being paid $6.8M in NIL makes him an automatic Heisman front-runner for the entire season.
Let’s compare Arch Manning’s football stats to two other QB’s who are considered the top Heisman hopefuls by CFB analysts.
QB Indiana, Fernando Mendoza: 2,342 yards, TD 26, INT 5, QBR 88.1 QB Ohio State, Julian Sayin: 2,491 yards, TD 24, INT 4, QBR 91.1 QB Texas, Arch Manning: 2,123 yards, TD 18, INT 6, QBR 63.1
I know, these stats say Arch Manning isn’t at the level of the other two Heisman candidates, but let’s dive-in deeper and take a look at the only number that really matters in 2025– NIL money.
Manning: $6.8M Mendoza: $2.6M Sayin: $2.4M
Once we get down to brass tacks we see that Arch Manning is the man.
Keep in mind, these NIL numbers are subject to change. Fernando Mendoza & Julian Sayin have both picked up a few NIL deals because of their good play, so give them credit. But Arch Manning still leads them all by a wide margin, despite a rough start to his season. Arch Manning’s Texas Longhorns are ranked #10, with a big game at #5 Georgia coming up next.
I’ll declare this here & now: A win for Texas over Georgia ensures the NIL Heisman for Arch Manning, as this game will be on national TV with every college football fan watching. Even if Texas loses badly to the Bulldogs, Arch Manning still probably wins the Heisman, because (in this era) it’s all about getting eyeballs on your program, not necessarily winning. Arch Manning delivers that, and that’s why Texas is on national TV every week. Some people would criticize that as putting hype over performance, and I won’t argue. That’s the way it is now, and I’m just the messenger.
There have been some great QB’s who have won the Heisman in recent memory: Jayden Daniels (2023), Caleb Williams (2022), Joe Burrow (2019), Lamar Jackson (2016), to name a few; but none of them made $6.8M in NIL deals in their sophomore year. Arch Manning is putting up numbers that no other college QB has ever approached, and since money is the only thing that really matters, I fail to see how he isn’t the Heisman Trophy winner in 2025. If you disagree then I must ask: What game are you watching?
When you see the Texas defense dominate, that’s all Arch. When there’s a hand-off to a Longhorn RB for a 50+ yard run, that’s Arch, etc. This is because no one sees this or cares about it without Arch Manning. His teammates all understand this and gratefully defer all major media interviews, glory & future NIL deals to Arch Manning, because he is their meal ticket. That’s the new roster dynamic in college football.
Arch Manning has the potential to play two more years in CFB and make over $20M for himself, while leading his program to national prominence, if not a national title. He may only project as a back-up QB in the NFL, if even that, but his name recognition is what matters. College football in 2025 is all about Arch Manning and if you don’t acknowledge that, then you are behind the times.
To not get this means you’re the type of fan who believes performance actually matters. That kind of outdated, old-school thinking needs to be discarded. And if coaches & alumni complain too loudly about interceptions and bad QB play, Arch Manning will enter the transfer portal, and then where will Texas football be? They certainly won’t be on TV as much, so (as an alum) think twice about being critical of Arch Manning or any other highly paid NIL athlete, because they don’t need your football program or a university education. They need unconditional praise & NIL money.
What I have described above is my new criteria for a Heisman Trophy winner. This means that if an unknown RB gains 6,000 yards in a lesser conference, that’s fine & dandy, but not a Heisman Trophy worthy season, because no one saw it, and it didn’t generate any publicity or revenue as compared to the Arch of Austin Texas.
Postscript: Carson Beck, the former Georgia Bulldogs backup quarterback and part of two national championship teams, transferred to the Miami Hurricanes after withdrawing from the NFL draft after he saw his stock plummet. Back for his senior year of eligibility, Carson Beck is getting an estimated $3.2M in NIL money in 2025, a distant second in the NIL Heisman to Arch. Miami is ranked #16. Note all rankings & stats are ESPN & AP poll through week 12.
Oh, Carson Beck’s on-field 2025 traditional QB numbers are: 2,194 yards, TD 15, INT 9, QBR 78.1. Miami is ACC, a lesser conference, and has two “bad” losses in the eyes of the NCAA. In contrast, Arch could lose them all and there would be no bad losses, only headlines & the transfer portal.
Sources mention that Carson Beck has a degree in sports management from the University of Georgia. This begs the question: What post-graduation degree is Carson Beck pursuing at the University of Miami? Answer: professional football. His diploma is finishing second in the 2025 (& inaugural) NIL Heisman. Note that there’s no actual trophy, as that too has been replaced by money. Instead of graduating with honors, Carson Beck is graduating with millions of dollars. Universities everywhere aren’t what they used to be and neither is college athletics.
Load management is an individual athlete’s choice. Michael Jordan has his opinion from the perspective of an all-time elite athlete. Most athletes are inspired by his example but simply can’t live up to his standard. That’s what it means to be the best at what you do.
If you are hurt, you really can’t prove yourself because you’re hurt and can’t perform. NBA players are entertainers, but not like Broadway entertainers, where there is no real physical punishment & required recovery as part of the gig. Fans need to understand athletes are human beings, and sometimes they really can’t perform– and need rest. If a fan can’t understand that then that ‘fan’ is really a hater. There’s no point in trying to please haters, and you really aren’t going to shut them up either. You can quiet them for awhile, but they’ll be back and you’ll be more hurt trying to prove yourself over & over to people who don’t respect you.
Michael Jordan retired twice during his playing career, after his age-29 season and after his age-34 season. In that sense he load manged his career. He didn’t want to play when he was burnt out, or after his father was murdered, or when his back-stabbing GM Jerry Krause broke up the Bulls after 1998. Michael Jordan came back with the Wizards as a player/owner, which was something much different than MJ with the Bulls. Actually it was similar to when Michael Jordan first came to the Bulls in 1984 and the franchise was a joke.
Michael Jordan performed as best he could for two seasons with the Wizards from 2001-2003, then retired for good after 15 seasons and cashed in his Wizards chips to buy the Charlotte franchise. It’s clear Michael Jordan didn’t fully respect his ‘new school’ players as a NBA team owner. His standards were too high, so inevitably that clashed with new school attitudes of players demanding a trade, or a coach be fired, etc. Players’ grievances deserve to be heard, and their concerns honestly addressed, but there are too many egotistical players who haven’t helped their team win anything, demanding to call the shots for the organization. I’m sure that never sat well with team owner Michael Jordan.
The Charlotte Bobcats/Hornets stunk and never drafted well during the MJ tenure as owner. Being a NBA player means something different as compared to Michael Jordan’s era. Players are paid MUCH better, and many are celebrities, and all that is due to Magic Johnson, Larry Bird & Michael Jordan. Dream Team 1992 finally put those rivals on the same team, and basketball has never been the same since. I believe Michael Jordan feels that too many modern NBA players don’t give him enough credit for making them millionaires.
I believe that’s why MJ walked away from the NBA as an owner in 2023. He has since gone into racing where he has been much more successful as far as winning goes. He looks happier too, which is probably the most important thing for him now. Keep in mind, Michael Jordan made a $3B fortune for himself as a NBA franchise owner, much more than he made in salary as a player, so in that sense he was a successful owner. It all depends on your perspective & definition of success.
From a medical & physiological perspective, Michael Jordan is super-human as compared to any other basketball player. Even LeBron James needs load management rest, as any 40-year old athlete would. Would you rather him retire? I’d rather see Lebron James keep playing as long as he wants, even if it means he needs to sit for extended times during the regular season. The pace of play is much faster in this era, making the up & down 82-game grind even more punishing. The NBA is a punishing marathon in terms of what it does to a player’s body.
Any athlete that feels his/her body needs rest should not feel badly about not playing. It’s a professional athlete’s obligation to know their body and we all have limits. To try to push beyond those limits to entertain others while meeting a professional standard one has set for oneself is an ethical choice every athlete faces. There is a point where winning isn’t worth it, and that’s what Michael Jordan is talking about when he says he has a competitive problem.
Winning & leadership have costs, as Michael Jordan has pointed out, but winning at the cost of sacrificing ethics & bodily health isn’t healthy. The allure of glory & financial reward can mask those ugly costs for a period of time, but they won’t sustain excellence in the long run because they’re unrepeatable. You aren’t as talented as MJ at basketball, so you can’t criticize what he did as a player, even if it crossed ethical lines with his teammates at times. Winning & his greatness justified the means as long as they could be covered-up, but knowing what we know today, teammates in this era wouldn’t tolerate what they would consider abusive behavior from their superstar player.
Honestly, I think it’s abusive to expect NBA players to play all 82 games in the regular season anymore, and then expect them to be ready to perform at their best in the play-offs which have been greatly expanded from the era of Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan retired from the game whenever he wanted because he could. Most players don’t have that ability, and therefore have to do everything they can to extend their careers and get paid. Most retired players are lucky if they can get a broadcasting job, which is a huge pay cut, but still pays normal bills.
Michael Jordan is such an icon that he can do whatever he wants because he lives a different life than most people. He does what’s best for himself, just as any other person should do what’s best for themselves. As long as you are honest & of good heart, your ethics are secure.
It’s impossible to go through life without making a great many mistakes. When an athlete gets injured, as all great athletes have at some point in their career, it’s how they rehabilitate & recover to come back that often defines them. Taking care of your body & staying healthy is a skill. It’s also a personal judgment that no one else can (or should) make for you.
The danger of heroes is that we idolize them and believe they could never be wrong. This means what’s right for Michael Jordan may not be right for you. People get consumed by their admiration and lose their heads on stuff like this. Michael Jordan needed to play every game because he didn’t want to disappoint even one fan. I’m not a basketball savant like MJ and neither are you, so don’t worry about living up to his standards, because you can’t and there’s no shame in that. It simply acknowledges his greatness which you know you can never achieve. You can still be inspired by his example without trying to copy his personal template.
Humanize your heroes instead of worshiping them blindly. Michael Jordan doesn’t want you to worship him & he doesn’t need your money anymore. Instead he wants your understanding & respect. What Michael Jordan meant in his “Insights to Excellence” interview with NBC’s Mike Tirico last night was that he is the best player ever and this is why. He played in every game he could and didn’t need load management.
Hall-of-Famers like Grant Hill did need load management. Hall of Fames have inner-circles, and then inner-inner circles, and that distinction is important to winning according to MJ. If you get that, then you are understanding load management science correctly, in a situation that is confusing & muddled because fans don’t fully understand the true greatness of their hero.
Last Thoughts on the Last Dance
Michael Jordan was only seriously hurt once during his playing career, when he broke his left foot at the beginning of the 1985-86 season. When he returned he was load managed into 7 minutes/half, which he didn’t like. Michael Jordan felt his playing time was being manipulated to gain a better position in the 1986 NBA draft. Ironically, the Cleveland Cavilers were the team that lost out to the Bulls for the playoffs, but got the #1 overall pick and selected Brad Daugherty out of UNC. The Celtics took Len Bias #2. That was what was available and Bulls GM Jerry Krause surely wanted Len Bias. We all know how that turned out.
Michael Jordan says his best teammate ever was Scottie Pippen. Scottie Pippen load managed his 1997-98 season by having necessary ankle surgery late. This created resentment with Michael Jordan which apparently still exists to this day. Bulls head coach Phil Jackson wasn’t upset by it, because he understands player’s interests and can handle it. Scottie Pippen insists he would do the same thing again because he had to protect his interests. Who is right?
Talkin’ baseball load management
Last night the Toronto Blue Jays beat RHP/DH Shohei Ohtani in game 4 after Ohtani went 9-9 in plate appearances in an 18-inning game 3 Dodgers win. Game 3 was perhaps the best World Series game ever, but I believe if Dodgers manager Dave Roberts had it to do over again he would start Ohtani in game 3, knowing he would have an off day to rest before his start. No one expects an 18-inning game, but they would have been better prepared for that contingency with RHP Tyler Glasnow starting game 4. The Dodgers can stack both starters in game 7, if necessary, so that’s not a concern. Shohei Ohtani pitched on short rest, after needing an IV after game 3, and didn’t perform anywhere near his best in game 4 the next evening after a nearly seven-hour game the night before.
I have to tell you I was exhausted just watching that amazing game. Game 3 to 4 in the 2025 World Series defines the limitations of human performance and the need for proper load management in the example of Shohei Ohtani. The World Series is now tied at 2-2, as the once-invincible Dodgers are now in a dogfight, arguably because their manager didn’t load manage his superstar correctly in a short series.
A strong case can be made that Dave Roberts should have started LHP Blake Snell (on 3-days rest) in game 4 when it was apparent that game 3 was getting crazy long. By the 15th inning or so, Dave Roberts needs to explain to Blake Snell that he now has to be the starter tomorrow night, because Shohei Ohtani is exhausting himself getting the Dodgers a win tonight. RHP Yoshinobu Yamamoto, their game 2 starter [!], was warming-up (team player) so Dave Roberts didn’t have to use a position player on the mound if the game went into the 19th inning. 1B Freddie Freeman homered to lead off the bottom of the 18th, so he didn’t.
I don’t know if Dave Roberts approached Blake Snell about this or not, but that’s what needed to be done for the Dodgers. Blake Snell needs to make up for it by winning game 5 tonight, otherwise he’s a bust for the Dodgers in 2025. Snell under-performed in WS game 1 and took the loss, so tonight is what the Dodgers have paid him for. That’s the pressure of the situation the Dodgers have put themselves into.
I wonder how Dodgers minority owner Magic Johnson feels about this? Magic certainly won’t reveal his true feelings to the public now, but after it’s over he’ll open up & share his thoughts, especially if it backfires into a Dodgers failure. Magic is accountable like that and that’s why even Celtics & Padres fans love him.
The best thing about the original Dream Team in 1992 was that as a Larry Bird fan, it felt great to finally have Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan & Charles Barkley on my team, because those guys have been killing Larry Bird’s team for years. Larry Bird now has a bad back and is retired, so he needs these great rivals to carry his team now. The core superstars in 1992 all wanted to play with Larry Bird for the same reason. That was the level of respect & camaraderie that defined the greatest sports team ever assembled.
Earlier this week the FBI made arrests & then held a press conference on an alleged fixed-betting & gambling ring tied to the Bonanno, Genovese & Gambino organized crime syndicates. More than 30 individuals have been indicted, including Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups, Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, and former player and assistant coach Damon Jones.
“Face cards” are sports celebrities which the mafia uses to lure high-stakes betters into their rigged poker games. They use rigged card shufflers, x-ray tables and other high-tech devices to fleece the “fish.” It’s also alleged by the FBI that insider information on injuries to key players, etc, was also passed on to these mafia associates. ESPN online today reads, “NBA commissioner Adam Silver ‘deeply disturbed’ by indictments.” It’s their first official comment on the matter, and it’s entirely an attempt to distance the league from an issue it has tried to ignore & downplay for a long time.
For historical context, the NBA did everything it could to cover up their gambling issue when crooked NBA official Tim Donaghy went public in 2007 after being arrested by the FBI. Tim Donaghy convincingly explained that the NBA under commissioner David Stern had been rigging outcomes for years to favor the LA Lakers and other preferred teams. Tim Donaghy was threatened & assaulted while in prison for 11 months, and last I heard he was an online betting handicapper.
The 2002 Lakers-Kings conference Finals is the one that forever stands out most clearly in the minds of basketball fans. That series was clearly rigged by the refs for the Lakers. Players & observant fans knew it, and it’s been a different game since. Instead of the best team winning, it’s now about enabling “superstars” like Shaq to the title, so the league can make more money. It’s all about tie-ins to sponsors and who is most marketable.
Because of this, I’m much less passionate about all sports as far as the outcomes go anymore, which is healthy. As a healthy adult you can’t allow yourself to be used by the game you love. It’s crucial to understand how to use the game for your benefit, as I have done in my writings on sports. You don’t need to be a professional athlete to master sports, but you do need to be passionate & serious about them on all levels. A lot of professional athletes don’t understand the bigger picture and this is how they get used by the game.
For all the couch potatoes & wanna-be’s, being an obsessed fan makes you an overweight obedient zombie that can be easily manipulated by a sports addiction. The point of these games today are twofold: 1) they’re contests for the viewers to make wagers on, and 2) the endless series of commercials telling us what & how to think. That’s the root problem with sports, but no one can say it, as rule #1 is don’t antagonize the sponsors because they’re paying for this. What corporate America is actually paying for is league (ownership) partnership so they can attach themselves to the glory of the game. This serves to distract attention from how they are destroying society & corrupting the sports they are bringing us.
What’s wrong with MLB is now on full display during the NLCS featuring the scrappy small-market Milwaukee Brewers against the behemoth of baseball in the LA Dodgers. The Brewers had the best record in MLB in 2025 and were 6-0 against the Dodgers, so their fans had hope going in. They both had met in the 2018 NLCS, with the Dodgers winning in seven, in what was a competitive & hard fought series. The Dodgers were then handled by the Boston Red Sox in the World Series.
* Later it was revealed the 2018 Boston Red Sox had used Iphone watches to relay signs stolen through clubhouse video, which seriously violated MLB rules on technology use during games, so that year has a fan asterisk on its champion. In 2017 the Houston Asterisks relayed their stolen signs by banging trash cans and this is why MLB now has PitchCom. I’m excited that MLB batters, pitchers & catchers can finally appeal balls & strikes in 2026. It’s about time, as this greatly reduces zealous Yankees, Red Sox, Mets, etc, crowds from unfairly influencing balls & strikes. No fan will miss the art of pitch framing by a catcher in MLB, we’ll be glad it’s gone. Padres SS Xander Bogaerts was punched out on ball four at Wrigley Field in the 9th inning of a deciding game three in the wild card round as his team was rallying. Technology needs to be used to prevent over-excited umpires from doing the wrong thing just to please a home crowd. This is the sports era we live in. Too many people who aren’t really part of the game keep trying to insert themselves into the game. This creates too many asterisks.
In 2025, the Los Angeles Dodgers are showing the baseball world what front office brains, tremendous clout & bottomless spending can achieve. In a game as random & unpredictable as baseball, the Dodgers have virtually ensured themselves a World Series championship. That much is clear after two games of the NLCS, with the Dodgers leading 2-0 and going back to Chavez Ravine for the next three, if necessary. They may only need two, but the outcome already feels inevitable.
As a San Diego Padres fan, it’s our calling to know & dislike the Dodgers. The Padres are like the Brewers & Mariners, they’ve never won it– while Seattle has never been. Mariners are up 2-0 on the Blue Jays and going home in the ALCS. Both these ALCS teams are better than the 2025 Brewers, but neither are going to be able to match the Dodgers. There is a qualitative change in how the Dodgers do things that has led so many fans to this conclusion.
The Dodgers won it last year and were dominant. The Padres were the second-best team according to the champion Dodgers, but there was some distance between them. This year the Padres fell to the 10th-best team in MLB, making the playoffs but losing to the Cubs in the Wild Card round. Among the post-season qualifiers, the Padres only could have beaten the Reds or Guardians, making them the 10th-best MLB team in 2025.
The Dodgers didn’t dominate MLB during the 2025 regular season like they did last year. They had significant injuries on the pitching side, and their bullpen collapsed at times. The Padres had many opportunities to win the NL West, but couldn’t score runs consistently. Their superb bullpen & great defense carried them as far as they got. The Padres were a flawed team, as was every other team in MLB– except the Dodgers.
The Dodgers do things differently from everyone else because they have the clout & brains to do it. For instance, the Dodgers signed LHP Blake Snell last winter for 5/$137M, specifically to pitch in October. The Dodgers only got 61.1 IP from Blake Snell during the season, but they were never concerned and didn’t have to rush him back from injury. Contrast that to 2024, when Blake Snell pitched 104 innings with a 3.12 ERA for the San Francisco Giants and his team wasn’t happy with that. Snell signed late because he had a limited free agent market due to QO restrictions, etc. The 2023 NL Cy Young winner (his second) missed the early part of 2024 with oblique injuries and by the time he got healthy the Giants were out of it and even floated trading Blake Snell to the Yankees at the 7/31 deadline. After the 2024 season, Blake Snell opted-out of his deal and inked with the Dodgers, who only expect him to pitch like an ace in October. The Dodgers are a different animal. Most teams need their ace all season AND in the post-season. Many teams have their World Series aspirations derailed by an injury to their ace. The 2025 Dodgers have four aces.
Big RHP Tyler Glasnow (4/$117M) pitched only 90.1 innings during the season, so he’s recovered, rested & ready to go for the playoffs, with an arm that most MLB post-season starters had in June. DH/RHP Shohei Ohtani 47 IP, 2.87 ERA during the season in which the entire organization has been building him up as a post season starter. RHP Yoshinobu Yamamoto (12/$325M) is the Dodgers true ace, making 30 starts with 173.1 IP and a 2.49 ERA. They didn’t overuse him trying to make the post season because they knew from the start they would probably win their division and surely make the playoffs. This is programmed planning that begins well before spring training. The Dodgers used homegrown pitchers to eat innings during the 2025 regular season, which allowed them to save their expensive aces until the playoffs. No other team can do that.
LHP Clayton Kershaw is a Hall-of-Famer, but he’s no longer dominant. In his final season he gave the Dodgers 112.1 above average innings as a starter. In the 2025 playoffs Clayton Kershaw is a middle-leverage reliever, and to his credit he accepts his role. RHP Dustin May pitched 104 innings and was good enough during the season, but gets left off the post-season roster. Tony Gonsolin is another Dodger homegrown righty starter who doesn’t make their post-season roster due to injury and/or ineffectiveness.
The Dodgers just use these guys and many others like them in the bullpen, to get through the regular season while allowing their championship level pitchers the season to recover and be ready to win in October. The Dodgers are playing a different game as compared to the rest of MLB. Even the Yankees have to struggle and fight with everything they’ve got just to reach the post-season. The Mets didn’t even make the post-season with a $320-350M payroll in 2025. The Dodgers spent the same or more than the Mets. The Shohei Ohtani contract currently defers $68M annually, so payroll commitments for the Dodgers are really over $400M/season. On top of that, their clout is all-powerful. Last winter in international free-agency, the Dodgers grabbed ace RHP Roki Sasaki, who is now their post-season closer. The Padres were in the Roki Sasaki running, but were forced to concede to the Dodgers, otherwise MLB would cancel (or at least downgrade) their TV deal.
It’s a fluid situation season-by-season these days, but in 2025, MLB produced & distributed local broadcasts for five teams: Arizona Diamondbacks, Cleveland Guardians, Colorado Rockies, Minnesota Twins, and San Diego Padres. These are teams that couldn’t negotiate a lucrative-enough TV-rights deal on their own, so MLB broadcast their games and paid these teams much less than others with their own deals.
For instance, on January 28, 2025, the Dodgers and Time Warner Cable signed a 25-year broadcast agreement valued at $8.35 billion, which would see the establishment of a new channel known as SportsNet LA. By comparison, the Padres lost $80-100M in the Diamond Sports Group bankruptcy, announced in March 2023, and have been trimming payroll while trying to remain competitive ever since. By the time Roki Sasaki was conceded to the Dodgers last January, all the remaining top international prospects had been signed, so the Padres were shut out of the 2025 international draft after signing the top prospect two years running. It’s like shoving sand against the tide for Padres GM AJ Preller.
And most fans feel pretty much the same at this point. No other league allows one team to outspend its competitors by 3-4 times. The NFL & NBA understand that star salaries need to be capped, while most athletes understand there needs to be more payroll equity at the bottom– especially for younger players. MLB is probably heading towards an owner lockout after the 2026 season.
There are serious labor rights issues here, along with ownership-league issues on competitiveness. These inequalities are distorting the game to the point where whichever big-market team manages itself the best and wins the hot stove season is virtually guaranteed a World Series. When MLB gets to the point we are now, radical new thinking is required. The same old tweaking, and revising of a broken system just leads to more conflict. The root issues are money & power over the game.
Players need to start taking more ownership of their game. It’s their labor that creates the game with all the fan interest. Billionaire owners mostly don’t understand baseball and only want to make money for themselves from it. This hurts the players, the fans, and the game itself. Capitalism is about crushing your competition, and that’s what the Dodgers are doing to baseball right now. MLB needs 30 teams competing on a level playing field for the game to be interesting again. In 2025, we have MLB hyping its behemoth for maximum ratings, while fans who have already anticipated the outcome are rapidly losing interest.
Note: This short piece is an extension of “What is Tilly Norwood?”, published yesterday.
NIL means Name, Image & Likeness, and it has transformed college sports since Ed O’Bannon won his lawsuit with the NCAA in 2015-16. Women’s hoops has undergone a qualitative transformation with athletes like Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese & Paige Bueckers getting paid in college, then popularizing the WNBA to new heights.
The owners of the NCAA & WNBA want to convince everyone that it is their platform that has created this success, when really it’s the players. WNBA franchise values have exploded this year due to the players making the game more popular. It’s always the workers who create the value, with the owners trying to convince everyone the opposite. It’s high time for exploited workers to take control of their industries and shout down the parasitic & criminal owners who are impeding progress for humanity.
When it comes to Tilly Norwood, she is a composite of many young female likenesses that have been stolen and re-packaged as proprietary to a corporation. “Tilly Norwood is art,” says it’s creator, but art always acknowledges those who helped make it possible, while Particle6 erases them from history and pays no future royalties. The young women who contributed to create Tilly Norwood by having their faces & bodies scanned are kept anonymous and never compensated beyond that session.
AI is becoming a cheap way to replace people– from film to TV to pornography. It’s also being used to replace workers in other industries, because the people who currently own & control AI are ruthless capitalists, always looking to cut costs and increase their profits. This doesn’t work for the vast majority, who are being exploited & discarded with no future. Humanity is better than this, but we need new leadership and it has to come from a unified international working class.
If you read the Wikipedia page to “Tilly Norwood” and check the (currently) twenty references, you’ll notice than none are earlier than 9/27/25, and most are dated yesterday & today– see the screenshot below. Before then no one knew of this artificial intelligence (AI) generated actress that is taking Hollywood by storm. AI is a powerful tool that is being put to use by the ruling class to cuts jobs & production costs for big studios.
According to Wikipedia, “Tilly Norwood was created by Xicoia, the artificial intelligence (AI) division of Particle6, a production company founded by Dutch actress-turned-producer Eline Van der Velden in 2015. Xicoia was officially announced on September 27, 2025 [last Saturday], at the Zurich Summit, part of the Zurich Film Festival… Van der Velden stated she intended Norwood to be the next Scarlett Johansson or Natalie Portman… and Particle6 has stated that using Norwood could cut production costs by 90%.”
This has raised immediate & hysterical alarm bells among actors, including/especially A-listers. AI Commissioner, the computer generated comedy sketch which launched Tilly Norwood has been described as clunky, unreal & unfunny. Yet, the question within the entertainment industry is, “Will a talent agency sign Tilly Norwood?” The answer appears to be yes. Here’s the Particle6 video introducing Tilly Norwood to the world:
Tilly Norwood never gets old, and costs 1/100th of an A-list actress. Tilly Norwood never gives the director a hard time on anything. Tilly Norwood is pornography coming to Hollywood. Every actor now realizes they are screwed, just like the rest of us who work for a living. Welcome to the class war you’ve been ignoring for all these years in the name of your careers.
That’s how a lot of movie fans feel about Hollywood actors at this point. The fascists came for the immigrants, socialists, leftists….and when they finally came for them, the A-listers, no one was left to defend them. That’s celebrity ignorance coming back around to haunt them. How about lending your collective voices to the revolution? You’re pampered by comparison and not as good as you think, which is why AI snuck in and is about to wipe you out as an influential social class. Nobody who works for a living feels sorry for these living marionettes because they had it coming.
All the actors & actresses who supported the #MeToo campaign, which wiped out much of the top talent, are now about to be wiped out with AI. Ask Kevin Spacey, Dustin Hoffman or Bill Murray how they feel about this and their thoughts and feelings will echo what I’ve written. These pretty puppets who backstabbed their talented colleagues to get ahead are now themselves on the chopping block. The irony couldn’t be more real for those blacklisted & MeToo-ed.
Tilly Norwood is deep-fake pornography presented as legitimate. This is how messed-up things are in entertainment. The audience is reduced to a bunch of fat, stupid losers, who don’t appreciate the difference between what’s real and what’s fake. It’s part of the dumbing-down of culture, which now defines Hollywood and the entertainment industry. If movies are all superhero blockbusters, action propaganda, or lame rom-coms, then why not have AI actors? That’s the logic of the capitalist market, which monopolizes power into the hands of the richest class that gets to make all the decisions on what’s best for everyone.
Tilly Norwood can be featured in any of these types of movies, without any artistic value being compromised, because there isn’t any artistic value to begin with. Feature Tilly Norwood on AGT, The Voice, or The Masked Singer. Just punch her in, it wouldn’t matter, as these would still be the same shows filled with vapid ass-clowns & over-produced garbage. When culture is allowed to deteriorate to such a degree that this is possible, it becomes apparent to EVERYBODY that we need a revolution. That’s the explosive nature of what Tilly Norwood represents.
You can’t interview Tilly Norwood face-to-face. Everything she says is someone else’s words & ideas, so how can a public ever accept Tilly Norwood? How does Tilly Norwood accept an Oscar or Emmy? How can Tilly Norwood be considered an actress if she isn’t a real person? Aesthetically, Tilly Norwood is a cartoon, no matter how lifelike she appears. It’s such a joke, yet it’s also the foreseeable future of Hollywood entertainment.
That’s the dialectics of revolution. Tilly Norwood represents the complete bankruptcy of the entertainment industry and the need for it to be overthrown. It means the studios don’t care about the quality of their content, they just want to cut costs and not pay anyone. This is the economic model being applied to science, healthcare, education, etc, and it’s what’s failing us.
Tilly Norwood means we as a society are going to allow pornography to be legitimate while Jeffery Epstein clients will never be prosecuted because they aren’t so bad, etc… Tilly Norwood is the specter of fascist degradation which now looms over humanity. You can’t ever actually meet her, but you can follow her on Instagram. What more could you ask for?
The WNBA players are currently trying to win themselves a fair share of the league they have created & built through their work, but the commissioner (who always represents the owners), has been telling them to be grateful for what they get, as if they can be replaced. Fortunately for the players, the WNBA is real and can’t be replaced by AI. But listening to the WNBA commissioner, one gets the impression she & the owners wish they could.
What we have in both instances is the same struggle, but in different stages: workers (actors & WNBA players) against capitalists represented by team owners & big production studios. The WNBA is booming, and the players now realize they should be profiting more from their labor. Their CBA is about to expire after the Finals. The WNBA owners aren’t budging on player salaries or any other important issues. It’s capitalist greed that is leading to a labor war in the WNBA, and next season is already in question.
The WNBA players need to realize they are a part of a much greater struggle, otherwise they will be isolated & defeated. The owners & corporate media are too powerful for working class start-up institutions such as the WNBA players. The ruling class defeat of A-list actors with the introduction of Tilly Norwood is confirmation of that. Working class consciousness & solidarity across all industries is required to defeat capitalist fascism.
